(S1) Episode 3: Statuesque
by J. David Reed
Summary: Forced into an adventure with Clara's life at stake, the Doctor is challenged to save the friend of someone he left behind. Someone who was forced into dealing with consequences she shouldn't have to deal with. Don't Blink. Episode 3 of a short series; cont. from Episode 2
1. Chapter 1: Sally Sparrow

The Doctor threw the controls to the TARDIS around, more in anger than anything, furious that he had been forced to leave Clara.

But he had taken too many chances with her. He wasn't going to let her die again. He wasn't going to let that mad Seripho let her die. Not a chance.

So he head to Earth, 2008, to a small shop he'd visited once, one the off-chance, whilst doing something completely different. He hadn't even gone in, just ran past. He was given a folder.

Then he'd got stuck in the past, and the folder he's been given suddenly had a use. It had everything, start to finish, that he had to say, and what she would say on the other side. In another time.

Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale still had their little shop, he found.

He materialised the TARDIS directly inside, in the front of the shop. It was a tuesday, and mid-day, so he couldn't understand why it was shut.

But he knew there was something going on - he'd been told. He'd been challenged to stop it, to save someone here.

He wandered around the shop cautiously, occasionally shouting 'Sally?' out into the darkness. No response.

The TARDIS groaned, as though unhappy to be here. The Doctor gave it a sharp look, before turning back and seeing Larry stood, baseball bat-in-hand, behind the counter.

'Who are you?' he said, before he noticed the big blue box. 'No way...'

'Larry?' the Doctor asked, looking at him.

'You need to leave,' he said. 'That's the Doctor's ship, he loves that ship, he'll be looking for you!'

'I am the Doctor, Larry. Long story. Regeneration, new face, new body,' he twitched his bowtie. 'New fashion sense.'

'I don't buy it.'

'A year ago, you and Sally helped me escape from the past. You stopped the Angels, the Weeping Angels that move when you're not looking. YOu were fine, managed to avoid the whole 'image of an Angel becomes an Angel' thing, and you fell in love. It's me, believe me.'

'Wha... what are you doing here?' He asked nervously.

'Well, something's going on. I was directed here, told I needed to save someone. Who do I need to save, Larry?'

'No one,' he stammered.

'Larry, please. I can help. I'm the Doctor.'

Larry stared at him, not in any way trusting. But there was something in his eyes, a desperation that even the Doctor could recognise.

'I can help...' the Doctor moved closer, but Larry raised the bat.

'The Angels nearly killed us before,' he said.

'Are they back?' the Doctor asked.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I have no idea.' He looked as though he was about to cry, and lowered the bat. 'We need you, Doctor.'

'I'm here,' he said. 'What's going on?'

'It's Sally,' he said. 'She's been having these nightmares, about the Angels. She hasn't had any before, but they started a week ago and she doesn't leave her room. I go in and check on her but she's so scared.'

'She's scared, okay,' the Doctor was thinking. Surely that can't be all that's going on? 'Take me up to her, Larry,' ordered. Larry lead him to the back of the shop, upstairs into the small flat they own above. There was a small corridor, with a wooden door at the end.

'Sally?' the Doctor said through the door.

'Who's there?' came a small, ill answer.

'It's the Doctor,' he said. 'I'm here to help!'

'I told Larry not to call you. I don't need a doctor...'

'Not that kind of doctor,' he said, looking at Larry.

They both heard Sally scramble across the room to the door, opening it wide, looking ath the Doctor and giving him a strange look. 'Thought you were someone else...'

'Oh no. It's me! I'm the Doctor, same Doctor, new face, new bowties, new voice, same brain, though. What's wrong, Sally?'

She looked at Larry, who nodded, acknowledging her confusion as a legitimate worry.

She said, nothing, but pulled her arm up and revealed a small, wing tattoo on her hand.

'What's that?' the Doctor asked.

'It's a wing,' she said.

'It's very nice.'

'It wasn't there three days ago.'

The Doctor watched her. He thought for a second, before starting to slap his pockets, searching through them for something.

'What are you-' Larry was cut off by the Doctor pulling out a small, battered book.

'Everything you'll need to know about the Weeping Angels!'

'You still think it's them? I didn't just have a night-out I can't remember, a little liver-poisoning?'

The Doctor scanned her with the sonic screwdriver, shaking his head. 'There are time-warps around you. Something is manipulating you, very subtly.'

'And you think it's the Weeping Angels?' she asked, looking at him. Her eyes were filled with tears. 'Are you saying that?'

'Well, I don't know, but... I think it's likely-'

Sally Sparrow slammed the door in his face, crying softly. Not the kind of crying that comes out of fear, or terror. More sadness. As though she'd already given up.

The Doctor looked through the book, coming to a chapter he'd given only a little thought to in the past. 'Marked Targets,' he said, reading it.

'Marked what?' Larry asked. Only now the Doctor noticed the The Angels Have The Phone Box t-shirt he was wearing. It made him smile.

'Targets. The Angels, have this rule,' he said, loud enough so he knew Sally could hear him too. 'The image of an Angel becomes an Angel. That's why you can't take a photo, or look at it too long. It's evolution at it's finest. If you look for too long, an image inside your head forms, and that starts to convert into an Angel. It starts to convert you into an Angel.'

'But it's been a year,' Larry said.

'Well, I know... but that mark on her hand, it's a target-mark. The Angels are coming for her.'

'How?' Sally asked through the door.

'Something changed. Something made an image in your head of them, am I right? And the Angels know about it. They're converting you, Sally. And I'm going to stop them.'


	2. Chapter 2: Wester Drumlins

Sally opened the door to look at him, questioningly. 'Why the Angel mark?'

'Because they're toying with you,' the Doctor said. 'I've seen it before, kind of. They don't always leave a mark, but they always do something. Last-time, it was a countdown.'

'A countdown?'

'Of how long a friend of mine would survive until they either killed her or converted her.'

'They might kill me?' Sally asked, looking at Larry. 'I can't...'

She walked away from the door, not shutting it this time, and sat on the bed, hugging her legs. 'Either I die, or I become a Weeping Angel, is that what you're saying?'

'Basically.'

'What happens then?' she asked flatly. 'Do I have control? Do I go zombie and start trying to kill people.' She looked at the Doctor. 'Would I kill Larry?' She had tears in her eyes now.

'I don't know. I've never seen this before. All I have is this bloody book!'

'Well, your friend, how did you save her?'

'...I dropped the Angels into a crack in time, so they had never existed. They blinked away, and Amy didn't have a memory of them that could convert her.'

'I'm guessing you don't have one handy?' Larry asked.

'No, but there's more than one way to kill an Angel,' the Doctor said, walking into the room to comfort Sally. 'It's not set in stone,' he said. She laughed at his bad pun. 'YOu can walk away from this, Sally. You'll be fine.'

'It's not me I'm worried about,' she said.

'If you convert, for all we know you'll have control over it.'

'If I convert, I don't want you to take the risk. Put me in the TARDIS and drop me into the sun. Just kill me. I'd rather die than hurt him.'

'You don't have to worry about me,' Larry said. 'My job's to look after you, Sal.'

She smiled a little, and then jumped up, off the bed, and flung her arms around Larry, clinging onto him. 'I love you,' she whispered to him.

'I love you too,' he said, hugging her tight.

Her feet dangled a little way off the ground, and swung as he picked her up. He kissed her forehead, and that was the moment she started to cry.

The Doctor left them to kiss and hug and all of that gooey, humany love-stuff they do.

He instead lay on the bed and tried to think.

How do you kill and Angel made of stone?

Even more importantly, how do you stop it from converting a person?

First, find the Angels that are in her thoughts, and get rid of them. Throw them into a sun, or something.

Next, figure out how far along the conversion is. If she had a mark, then it must be fairly far.

Third, find out what's driving her fear. The Angels have been gone for a year, why would she have a spark of fear now?

Well, first things first - find the other Angels.

As soon as Sally and Larry had stopped fondling.

The Doctor waited for them to finish, and for Larry to put her down, and then told them what the first stage of the plan was - to find the Angels.

'What happened to them after the basement?'

'Nothing,' Larry said. 'They're still there, arent they?'

'I think so,' Sally said. 'We left them there, so they should just be in the basement of Wester Drumlins. Nobody goes there, and it's uninhabited still.'

'Right then, the Doctor said. 'To the scene of the crime!'

'Wait, we're going there?'

'We have to,' the Doctor said.

'Why?' Larry asked. 'That place is... awful.'

'Well, you don't have to come,' Sally said. 'I'm not getting you all caught up in my mess.'

'Don't be stupid,' Larry said.

'Someone needs to hold up the shop,' she said. 'Please. I don't want you anywhere near them.'

'If that's really what you want?'

'Yeah,' she said, smiling. Larry looked relieved, but cautious. He looked to the Doctor.

'If she gets hurt, I'll kick your little space-butt into next week.'

Sally laughed at his attempt of macho-ness, and Larry smiled. She hadn't laughed in a while.

The Doctor lead Sally downstairs, and into the TARDIS.

'This place has changed,' she said, remembering when she had last seen it.

'Same as me,' the Doctor said. 'Still an old beaut' though!' he smiled.

'Are we really going after those Angels?'

'Yes we are.'

'Are we going to kill them?'

'Yes, we are.'

'Am I going to get better?'

'Yes you are.'

Sally looked troubled. 'How much will this affect me?'

The Doctor started to push levers, preparing to take-off. 'What do you mean?'

'Well, when no-one's looking at me, will I be human? Or will I have wings, and be homicidal? Would I be able to touch people without killing them?'

The Doctor stopped, looking down. 'I have no idea. But I'm here to help you. And I will. I'm going to get you better, so don't even start on that, because it's not happening. Ever.'

Sally said nothing. Even when the TARDIS took-off, into time and space, she simply steadied herself and stayed silent.

Until the TARDIS landed, she was silent. They exited the blue box, and she finally said. 'How are we going to kill them?'

The Doctor shrugged and said, 'any way we can.'

'As soon as we move one, the other across from it is free,' she said.

'I know,' the Doctor said, walking her down the overgrown gravel path to the front door. They stepped in, being cautious of the vines and leaves that had found their way inside.

'So how do we kill them?'

'We don't kill them,' he said. 'We move them. Somewhere their link to you will be broken. Unless we can kill them, then we'll kill them.'

Sall showed him downstairs, to the basement, where the one light bulb that had troubled them so long ago stood was now replaced, and on, with three friends.

They'd made sure there was no flickering happening any time soon.

But still, the room was dim, and they could see the square of Angels, stuck in place from a year ago, almost taken by some vines that were crawling towards them.

'Doctor?' Sally had noticed something.

One of them was missing.

An Angel had got out.

'Doctor where is it?' she asked. 'How the hell did it get out?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'But we should leave. We need to leave right now.'


	3. Chapter 3: Flickers

'Get out,' the Doctor ordered. Sally didn't argue, running to the door, only to have it shut in her face before she could escape. The Doctor looked at her, worry and fear scratched into his face.

Sally looked back to him, seeing the look on his face, but then looked past him, the three lights she and Larry had put up a while ago.

The flickered.

'Okay,' the Doctor said, realising the room was starting to go black. 'This is pretty scary.'

'I've done this before,' Sally said, breathless. 'They can turn out the lights, and when they do...'

'Yep,' the Doctor nodded. 'Then they start to move.'

The Doctor managed to get one good look at the Angel opposite the space where the other should be; It's eyes were closed.

The lights flashed off and on again, and the Angels had turned slightly, their faces now staring at the Doctor and Sally.

Sally slammed on the door, trying to get through. The Doctor joined her, scanning it with the sonic. 'Keep looking at them,' he told her as he hurried. 'I can get this.'

The lights continued to flicker, but only the three of them. The fourth still hadn't made an appearance, and they were both nervous about thinking of when they were going to run into it.

But, right now, the Doctor's mind was strictly on opening the door. The sonic told him that wood wasn't it's thing, but he'd installed a rudimentary app he thought might have worked. It seemed to be having an effect, but not fast enough at all.

'This is stupid, watch the Angels,' Sally said. The Doctor glanced past her to the Angels, who moved an inch further with each flicker. They were slow.

Sally slammed her foot into the door, at the handle, bursting it open. She ran for her life, and the Doctor stood, letting the light of the outside flood in on the Angels.

Sally ran into the open driveway, alone, and had to control her breathing and her shaking hands. 'Panic attack,' she commented, as her legs gave way.

He lay in the driveway, calming herself quietly as she waited for the Doctor.

His absence wasn't even a major worry for her. She vaguely remembered the fourth Angel not being there, but she wasn't sure what she'd be able to do about it anyway, even if it was directly behind her.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was in the process of moving the Angels in a manner where they would be facing each other, almost hugging from the way their arms had been outstretched. Their grotesque faces seemed to scream at one-another, and he had a stroke of genius.

The way they were moving, he realised, was because the Angels could only see each other when they weren't stone - so when they were, stone, the other could move. They were flickering between their real form and stone at impossible speeds.

So how do you freeze them?

He figured they would be safe for the moment, at had taken ages for that one Angel to stop-motion itself into closing it's eyes so that the one opposite could escape-

Oh.

He stopped, realising that he had left the Angels unattended when there was another one out there, free.

He looked back and saw all four Angels, one advancing on him, one still where he'd left it, and another one holding the last, moving it so that they weren't facing each other.

'Oh dear,' he said, moving backwards. He hadn't anticipated this, and thought the only way to stop them would be to lock them in, but it's impossible to keep them trapped anywhere for long. They're stronger than wood, by a long way.

He soniced the door, and slammed it shut on them. He heard them instantly start smacking the wood, making it flex and warp under their pounds.

He turned and ran, still able to hear them slamming against the wood.

He frowned as he ran, thinking things over, until he made it outside. Sally was sitting on the gravel, her eyes closed.

'I had a panic attack,' she said.

'You okay?' he asked, helping her up and leading her into the TARDIS, shutting the doors behind them. She stumbled in, unsure of her footing.

'My head really hurts and I think I might throw up. Are they gone?'

'Nope.'

'Coming after us?'

'Most definitely,' he said. 'But, I think we may have an advantage!'

'What's that?' she asked, rubbing her head and holding her stomach.

'They're slower than usual. Maybe it's because they've been asleep for a year, but they weren't as fast as we've seen them, eh? You've seen them jump metres in a millisecond, but a relatively long flash of a lightbulb, and they'd barely turned.'

'So they're rusty?'

'Exactly!'

'How do we use that against them?'

'Against them? Oh no, we just use it to run, Sally. These are the Weeping Angels, Lonely assassins, hunters and, in some cases, great farmers.'

'So we're running?' she asked him, watching as he spun dials and shifted levers, sending them off into the vortex.

'Yes, we are.'

'Where to?'

'Your shop!' he said. 'Love me a little shop. I worked in a shop for a little bit, did you know that? Battled a crashed cyberman in a big shop. It's a hard life.'

'You're a strange man,' Sally commented, feeling slightly worse for the shifting floor of the TARDIS.

They landed and quickly burst out into the shop, still closed, and travelled upstairs, where Larry was sat, waiting for them. He jumped up as they came in, catching Sally as she collapsed in his arms.

'What happened to her?!' he asked, looking in her eyes as they glazed over.

'She says she had a panic attack but...' the Doctor scanned her, and then pulled up her sleeve to see the hand that had once been home to the strange wing-mark now a dull grey.

'What's that?' Larry asked, holding up her head.

'It's started,' the Doctor said. 'She's panicking, thinking about the Angels, letting them get inside her head, Her fear of them is fuelling it.'

'So how do we get her to stop being scared?!' Larry yelled, starting to panic himself.

Sally was in Larry's arms, almost limp, shivering. Her half-stone hand hung, motionless and heavy on her arm.

The Doctor watched it for a few seconds, and was physically able to see the grey becoming thicker, as though sinking up from her bones up to the surface. Her fingernails became stone fully first, then the tips of her fingers.

It seemed to top when it reached her knuckles - just as Sally passed out.

'Oh, okay,' the Doctor nodded. 'That'll do. Can we keep her asleep?'

'For how long? Larry asked, laying her down on her bed.

'As long as it takes for me to kill and Angel.'

Larry looked at him, nodded, and let the Doctor leave. He lay her head softly onto the pillow, and didn't leave her side until she woke up the next morning.

'Hey there,' she smiled, looking at him. He smiled back.

'How you feeling?'

'Like I'm not really here,' she said. 'Where's the Doctor?'

'Off planning, or something. He left last night. I'm not sure here he got to.'

Sally nodded vaguely and fell back asleep.


	4. Chapter 4: Painted Grey

The Doctor was in his TARDIS, in a small room full of glass jars and smoking bottles. He hadn't been in this room for what seemed like forever, but he knew that he had something in here that could help with the Weeping Angels now that they were, he hoped, still in that room. Maybe just in the house, but that would have to do. For now.

He had no way of killing them. Yes, they were made of stone, but if you try and strike them when they were made of stone, but as soon as you look away they just rebuild. You could reduce them to dust, blink and it'd be smiling in front of you. Yet another demonstration of their impossibly impressive evolution. The perfect predator.

He shuffled between close-set shelves, hunting for the little creature he knew was in here somewhere... ah!

He pulled out a small glass jar within which sat a small rainbow-colour ball. It shimmered and hovered inside the jar, and he smiled. He waved to it.

'Hello little guy,' he said, opening the top of the jar. The liquid the small ball had been kept in was designed to keep it fed and breathing without trouble, for as long as possible.

This was his 'specimen' room. For creatures without higher brain function or with endangering circumstances. This particular ball, a creature known as an 'ilumitlo', was a creature with 360 degree vision, able to see in the dark and colours neither he or most creatures could comprehend. He called it Iggy.

While it wasn't the best possible solution to the problem, the Doctor knew he had to resort to using Iggy as a way to stop the Angels; it was nowhere near perfect, and he didn't generally enjoy using creatures for purposes such as this, but he needed to save Sally and, in the end, Clara.

He wondered what Seripho was doing to her. Would he torture her? Kill her, even? He was all about 'making a point', maybe he would do it to show him how his own actions affect those around him.

The Doctor knew that what had happened to Sally was partially his fault, calling on her help to get him back from the 60's, but he knew too that if Seripho hadn't sent him back, Sally would have been claimed by the Angels - something he wasn't going to let happen.

He took Iggy and put back the jar, leaving the specimen room. On his way out he passed by a few other small things he'd picked up along the way - memory worms, a baby adipose, a cybermat. Tiny creatures he could look at, study. He was a Doctor, after all.

Iggy in hand, he left the TARDIS and strolled out into the lovely sunny mid-morning, wondering at what point the Angels would choose to circle him. He made sure the TARDIS was shut and locked, before dropping in on Wester Drumlins.

He made way to the basement, only to find the door burst open and in splinters across the floor. Sounds about right.

Okay, so he needed to get the Angels all in one place... how do you do that?

He left the house and stood outside the TARDIS, and blinked.

He could see one Angel upstairs, in the window. Another was at the doorway. He backed into the TARDIS, knowing that he just needed them all together, somewhere enclosed, but he had to risk getting caught.

Closing the doors, he ran to the monitor and looked at the screen. The Angels had advanced, one being now directly outside the TARDIS. The others were gone, planning a different approach he assumed.

He held Iggy in his hand and tried to plan out the next section. To be perfectly honest, he had no idea how he was supposed to stop these things. They were forever, they were undestroyable and they were the perfect hunters. All he had was a slightly impressive space-eyeball. No offence, Iggy.

He closed his eyes, knowing that the Angels weren't able to get inside, and gave them a chance to move. When he opened them and looked to the monitor, he saw still only one, in the same place. He frowned, and was about to move outside when the phone rang.

'Why do people keep calling this?' he asked nobody.

He opened the slot on the inside of the door that allowed him to access the phone (a nifty little slot he'd installed himself), and answered.

'Hello... TARDIS residence?'

'Hello,' came a voice. It sounded twisted, but vaguely human. It was speaking English.

'Who are you and how did you call this phone?'

'We are the Angels.'

'Ah.'

'You are the Doctor.'

'I am indeed! What do you want, eh? You wouldn't call me for nothing.'

'We wish to make a deal,' the Angel suggested.

'A deal? With me?'

'We hoped we could convinced you to grant us your ship, the Timelord science and time energy could fuel us for eternity.'

'I know that.'

'In return we will not convert your friend.'

'Sally?'

'She would be spared, Doctor.'

'How? How do I know you even have control?'

'You would rather keep your ship than your friend?'

'That's not the point. The point is that you would do anything for this power, including lie about your own influence over that process. From what I've seen and read, all it takes is her memory, her image of you in her head. You can't control it.'

'So you deny us the TARDIS?'

The Doctor paused. What if they could actually help? What if he could give them the TARDIS and this whole thing would just go away?

But he needed the TARDIS. He had to go back and save Clara. He needed to know what she was, and to save Sally, too.

'I can't,' he said. He knew he'd regret it. That he'd always be thinking 'what if that could have saved her?'

He didn't have a way of stopping them. Not really. He could maybe hold them still, with Iggy, but there was no way to kill the Angels. As a stone they would just re-shape. In their true form they were impossibly fast. He'd have to find a rip in time just to try and trick them into it.

He'd failed Sally.

This was the lesson Seripho was talking about; that the Doctor needed to know what his actions caused. He had brought her into this world, and now he was the reason she'd be ripped out of it, painted in grey.

'Then she will die, Doctor,' the Angel said. 'Her body will become an Angel, and the Sally you know will die.'

'I'll save her,' the Doctor said.

'We all know that's not quite true,' it said, taunting him. 'You can't. You don't know how.'

'I'll do it,' he said. 'I won't let her die.'

The Angel said nothing, simply letting the phone go dead. The Doctor hung up.


	5. Chapter 5: So that's the Plan

'You need to start telling us everything,' Sally said. The Doctor had barely opened the door, and had stepped into a cold atmosphere where he knew he was to blame.

'What do you want to know?'

'Why are you here?' Larry asked.

'To help-'

'No, but why.' Sally stared at him, holding her wrist. 'What's happening to me is, yeah. But why are you here? How did you know to come?'

'I was with a friend,' he explained. 'Called Clara and, as usual, I got her into trouble. She was shot and... I've seen her die a few times. I sometimes make her out to be little more than a mystery to me but... but for all the questions she poses, she's a great friend. She helped me through the loss of other people very close to me, and she's someone I should possibly be more honest with.'

'What happened to her?' Sally asked.

'Well, like I said, she was shot. By someone who seems to know a lot more about me than I do about them. Seripho, he's called, but I doubt he's alone. A conspiracy like this, he's just a footman, someone chasing up loose ends. He sent me here, saying that I needed to experience something, teach me a lesson about what my actions cause. The consequences they can have. He would heal her, she'd be fine, but I had to stay here until either I could save you or...'

'Or she dies,' Larry finished.

'Yes.'

'So that's why you're all 'god-complex' must-save-every-one, is it?'

'I suppose.'

'Don't you get tired of having to save people, vanquish foes, lose friends?'

'Absolutely,' he said. 'All I am is tired.'

'So why do you still do it?'

He thought for a moment, contemplating why he still did what he did. 'Because I'm not saving anyone,' he admitted. 'Not really. The people I meet, the places I go, they're fixing themselves. Sometimes I give them a push, something to aim at. Sometimes I just say the right words. Sometimes I run after it but, more often than not, it's not me who actually saves anyone.' He smiled to himself. 'I'm no hero, Sally. And the idea of your life being in my hands should scare you to death. My friends, they're the heroes. They are the reason I'm here, trying to justify what I've done to them. It's not fair, when they get hurt, and that's the lesson Seripho is trying to teach me, but I don't know how long I can keep going until I'm done. Clara is my friend, and she's a mystery and laughs and spunk all rolled up and sometimes I think she fascinates me because she's so... human.'

'And what about me?' Sally asked.

'You get hurt,' he said. 'You're the person I manage not to save. I'm not...' he looked away, to her hand. It was obviously tone now, and it had started to crawl up her arm.

'Doctor,' Sally said softly. 'It's not your job to save anyone. Everyone seems to look at you like a God, and you're starting to think that means you have to act like one. Whatever this Seripho says, what's happening to me isn't your fault. It's the Angels. They are doing this to me.'

She shifted her hair in a way that let the Doctor see her temple, where grey veins had started to show.

'It's not up to you to save everyone. I'm not a damsel in distress, Doctor. I'm dying, yes. And I hate what I'm going to become. But if it happens, I don't want you to blame yourself, you hear me?'

The Doctor said nothing, he just stared at her, watching with a quiet internal rage at himself.

'I'm terrified,' she almost laughed. 'I'm so scared. I don't want to be responsible for anyone dying, and I know you feel like you're responsible too. But I can't...'

'Sally-'

'Don't say we can stop this,' she said. 'You know we can't. You know that the Angels are going to convert me or something and the only way we can stop them is to drop them into some time-paradox and that's not going to happen. We lost. It's okay, Doctor. It's definitely not your fault.'

'If you go down,' Larry said. 'I'm going with you.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I'm here for you,' he said. 'I'm useless, you know that. There's no point to me without you, not really. And all of these Angels, everything we've seen and what we've done... I'm not just gonna keep the shop open without you.'

Sally kissed Larry, and the Doctor turned away to give them their moment. He knew how it felt to be dying, and her response had been the most mature and impressive thing he'd ever seen. It's true, he didn't know how to kill the Angels. He could stop them, with Iggy, if he had them all in one place, but that wouldn't stop them from killing Sally and replacing her with an Angel.

The Doctor closed his eyes, moving away from the tragic couple, and tried to gather his thoughts. He wasn't going to give up, but he knew that Sally wasn't going to play the victim, sit back and let him go off and do so many fantastical but inherently pointless things. She was a fighter, and she was going to fight the Angels with everything she had.

'What does that book say about killing an Angel?' Sally asked, after she and Larry had had their moment. They were both close to tears.

'That the only known instance of an Angel dying was at the hands of another Angel.'

'What happened?'

'They don't say. Just that only Angels can kill each other, and I assume they have to do so with their eyes closed, too.'

'I want to try,' she said.

'_What_?!' both Larry and the Doctor were blown back. Sally wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked at Larry.

'I'm not going to go down easily,' she said. 'If I fail, that's my fault, Doctor. But I will fight for my life, for my man,' she blinked, unsure of whether she should continue. 'For my baby.'

Larry looked at her for a second, started to react, stopped, as though looking for reassurance that he had heard what he had. 'You're not...'

She nodded, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She did both.

'Oh my... Oh God,' Larry said, laughing. He stopped. 'Oh, God...' he seemed completely clashed on whether he was ecstatic or terrified even more so.

'That's what caused the nightmares,' the Doctor said. 'That's why you're so scared. You're not scared for you, you're scared for your baby.' He nodded, smiling, as though this made complete sense all of a sudden.

'I found out a week ago, and the Angels and the thought of them coming back... I guess I caused this all, then.'

'Or we both did,' Larry said, half-joking. 'I mean, I can't let you go alone now. I meant it when I said we'd go together.'

'They'd rip you apart,' the Doctor said.

'I could be bait,' he said. 'I lure them into a room, we can keep them all as stone, somehow...'

'I can manage that,' the Doctor said, thinking of Iggy back in the TARDIS, hovering in the console room, waiting.

'And then Sally rips them apart.'

Sally nodded. 'I want to fight,' she said. 'I'm not letting you just hop in and save me,' she said. 'And are you sure you want to be bait?'

'I have to, they already have you and the Doctor's got to immobilise them,' Larry said, shrugging it off as though it was nothing.

'So that's the plan?' the Doctor asked, knowing that it was completely insane. They didn't even have too much proof that Sally would be able to kill any Angels, and if she was Angel-enough to do it if they could kill each other. But it was the only plan they had, and he knew that Sally and Larry weren't going to take this lying down. They were going to win. They didn't really need him, he realised. They needed each other.


	6. Chapter 6: Playing Bait

'So you want me to go into a room full of Angels and kick the living crap out of them, because that would apparently kill them?'

'No idea if it'll work,' the Doctor said. 'Not sure if you'll even be able to control the Angel parts of yourself. Do you feel like you could do it?'

'I do,' she said. 'I just wish I wasn't...' she looked to her currently flat stomach. 'Vulnerable.'

'If you want to go in, you can. If not, we'll find another way-'

'No. This is what we've got. This is how I'm going to save myself, and my child, and then I'm going to live with that child's father until I'm old and grey, if you'll pardon the bad imagery.'

Larry laughed, noticing that she only ever made jokes these days when she was scared. He took her hand, squeezing it slightly. She smiled to him, knowing he was trying to help take some of the strain.

'So, when are we doing this?' she asked, wiping her eyes.

'Whenever you're ready. The longer we leave it, the stronger the Angel side of you will be. That might make you stronger at beating them, but we have no idea when you're going to lose control...'

Sally looked at her stone hand, unable to move whilst she looked at it. Brushing it against her temple, she could still feel through it, though it felt numb. Like she had pins and needles buzzing like white noise up her arm and in her head.

The matted, grey veins on the side of her head were growing close to her left eye now. She could feel it, like a heat, pressing on her.

It started to grow hotter, pushing on her, forcing her to her knees.

She could hear Larry, shouting. But his voice was so far away...

Someone pulled her up and onto the bed, laying her down. She barely noticed. All she could feel was the side of her head burning, her stone hands not even letting her grasp the bed to relieve it.

'It's growing on her arm,' the Doctor said, panicking slightly. He and Larry had gotten her onto the bed, and no were just trying to restrain her to stop her hurting herself. He hands were stone - that would kill her if she managed to hit her own head hard enough. 'And her head! Okay, Larry, we can't do anything and I'm sorry you have to see this I really-' Sally's stone fist smacked the Doctor in the jaw, and he managed to give her an insulted look before continuing to hold down her arms. Larry held her head, kissing her forehead and trying to calm her.

'Sally?' Larry asked her, trying to reach her. 'Sally can you hear me?'

She said nothing, barely able to stop herself screaming. Her muffled whimpers were perhaps worse, not letting her let it out. she had to hold in the pain.

Her eyes were clamped shut, and as the grey veins grew to touch her eye, she let out a new lease of noise - an animalistic, core screech. It only held for a few seconds before she blacked out.

As her head fell back, limp, the Doctor rushed to check her breathing. 'She's alive,' he said. Larry let out a relieved sigh, still tenderly holding her head.

'What happened?' he asked.

'I think the Angels know we're coming after them,' the Doctor theorised. 'They're speeding up the process, making her change faster. This way she'll lose control faster.'

'Lose control?'

'Well, right now I'd say she'd doing a pretty impressive job of not killing us, but that's not going to last forever. We need to get her awake and to the Angels as soon as possible...' the Doctor stopped as he saw Sally's eyes drift open, though she was still out cold.

Under her flesh eyelids, her eyes were stone.

'Doctor...' Larry didn't know what he was trying to point out to the Doctor that he hadn't already seen, but he needed to say something. The woman he loved was becoming stone, bit by bit, before his eyes. And he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it.

But he didn't get angry. Not while she lay unconscious in front of him. He just kissed her forehead again, and held her head in his hands, waiting for her to wake up.

She was only out for a few minutes, and was soon blinking again.

'Why is everything dark? Larry? Doctor?' she called out.

'I'm here, Sally! We're here,' Larry calmed her.

'Why can't I see anything?' she asked.

'You can't see because your eyes are made of stone,' the Doctor said, grievingly. 'They're converting you faster, Sally.'

'I can feel it,' she said, quite calm. 'I can feel what you were talking about - the Angel urges to do whatever I can to get the energy.'

'Angels work on time energy, that's going to be a strong impulse. Like hunger.'

'So what, I'm going zombie?'

'If you want to think of it that way, yes.'

'How long until we go up against them?' she asked, knowing that she was low on time. 'I want to do this soon.'

'We can go whenever you feel up to it.'

'I'm not getting any better,' she said, trying to stand. Her legs shook under her as she lifted up from the bed, so Larry dove to catch her, holding her up.

'I'm not so sure about this,' Larry said. 'I can't let you just go in there like this, they'll destroy you Sal.'

'They need me,' she said. 'Alive. Angel. They could just kill me, but I think they're doing this for a reason.'

'We'll take you down to the TARDIS. I'll take you both to Wester Drumlins. Larry, you're playing bait, right?'

'I can do that, yeah.'

'And I've got a friend who'll help keep them still while Sally takes them out.'

'Might be a bit harder now, mind,' she said, laughing a hollow laugh. 'I mean, how's a blind girl supposed to handle four homicidal stone murderers?'

'You can do this,' the Doctor said, pushing her maybe a little harder than he should have. He wouldn't usually, but he knew it was the only way the Angels would die. She was their only shot at survival.

And then there was the baby.

Plus the Doctor's slightly more selfish motive of saving Clara, and proving that not all of his friends will die at his hand. He had to show Seripho and his employer that the Doctor didn't ruin people's lives.

He didn't want to be proven to be a villain. He had enough self-esteem problems as it was.

The TARDIS travelled at a slower pace than usual, making the journey smoother for Sally, as though it knew she was blind and weak.

They exited the TARDIS, Sally on Larry's arm for guidance, and they entered the seemingly empty Wester Drumlins building, with no sign of the Angels anywhere.

The Doctor was carrying Iggy under his arm, prepared for anything, whilst they got Larry into position - the basement. He knew the risks, and they had talked through what was going to happen - he'd wait here with Sally for the Angels. They hadn't fed since they were stuck here, so they'd hopefully be desperate enough to attack Larry even with her being where she was.

The Doctor gave Larry a small rectangular device, with a single red button on it.

'Big friendly button,' he said. 'Push it when they arrive.'

'Right,' Larry said, nodding. He sat in the near-darkness, refusing to blink as much as he could, even though he knew it was the whole point.

'I love you,' Sally whispered after they'd been waiting for a few minutes.

Larry smiled, looking to her. 'I love you too.'

They kissed, allowing an Angel to climb into the basement unannounced. It stood over them, watching as Larry snapped back to looking.

It's face was placid - not in an attacking mood.

'Close your eyes,' Sally told him.

'Are you crazy? There's a-'

'I know. It's talking to me. Close your eyes, baby. You'll be fine.'

Larry, reluctantly, closed his eyes on the Angel. He felt Sally's hand, no longer stone, tighten on his arm.


	7. Chapter 7: The Weeping Girl

She clutched him, listening as the Angel spoke to her. It was pleading. Asking for help.

It was scared.

'What are you scared of?' she asked out loud, not knowing how to communicate telepathically like it was.

_The Fourth Angel_, it said. Thought? _The Fourth Angel was one of us, our leader, but it has started to hunt us. It has decided that Angels are the most... profitable of prey._

'There's an Angel hunting other Angels?' she asked.

'There's a what?' Larry asked.

'Is that Angel the one which is killing me?' she asked. 'Is the Fourth Angel converting me?'

_No Angel is converting you, Sally,_ it said. _It doesn't work that way. The only thing converting you is your memory of the Angels, and your fear of them. The image of an Angel becomes an Angel itself. You have an image inside you, so you're becoming one._

'So how do I stop it?'

_I can stop it, Sally,_ it promised._ I can make you human again. I can stop the thoughts consuming you._

'How?'

_By wiping your memories. You will have no knowledge of us, nor of the Doctor. You will still be in love, and you will still be pregnant. You will forget us._

'And that will save me?'

_It will._

'Then take me to this Fourth Angel.'

_It has converted my two sisters._

'Can someone please tell me what's going on?' Larry asked. Sally seemed to snap out of a small trance, and hugged his arm tightly.

'I only have to kill one Angel now, I think-'

_Three,_ it corrected her. _My sisters too._

'Three. Not four, three,' Sally said.

'Oh. Good!' He opened one eye to see the Angel, still stood where it had been. 'I'm guessing we're not killing that one?'

'No we're not.'

_My sisters plan on converting humans to Angel, and then to feast on them. They began with you due to a grudge._

'Sally Sparrow - enemy of the Angels, eh?' the Doctor's voice came from the doorway. He stepped in, Iggy in hand, and threw him up. Iggy stopped and hovered about a metre off the floor, humming slightly to itself.

The Doctor waved his psychic paper in the air. 'I've been getting a transcript of the Angels' side of the story,' he explained. 'So there are three Angels hunting down this one, and they're converting Sally so that they can feast on her because cannibalisation is just so _in_ right now. Am I right?'

'She says you're right.'

'She?' The Doctor hopped over to the Angel, solid and stoic in it's stone form. 'Never been allied with an Angel, suppose it's a plus. Not really sure yet.'

'We hang out here until another Angel makes a pop at us here.'

The words 'they won't' appeared on the paper.

'And why not?' the Doctor asked the statue.

The words read 'they are hunting me, and waiting for Sally, they have no interest in Larry. He won't work as bait, which is what I assume you were trying.'

'So what do you suggest we do instead?' he asked.

'Maybe we use the Angel as bait instead?' Larry offered. 'If they're hunting this Angel, can't we trap them around this one?'

'I'm not sure we have a choice, really,' Sally said. Her eyes were locked on the doorway where the Doctor had appeared only a minute before - a stone hand was showing from around the corner, taunting them.

Larry, the Doctor and Sally all watched this one hand, forgetting to watch the Angel stood by them. It managed to turn to face the doorway at least, before Iggy's sight was no longer blocked by Larry, and it forced it back to stone.

The Doctor took Iggy and held it, walking up to the stone hand, round the corner, into the hallway. Words on the psychic paper wrote 'that is one of my sisters, but not the one feasting on Angels. She is not the leader.'

'Sally?' the Doctor called her up. Larry lead her up to the Angel, which stood as though it was going to turn the corner and pounce, stuck. 'Ask the Angel how you kill it.'

'Okay...' Sally's stone eyes gave away the fear she felt. She explored the thoughts of the Angel in front of her - she saw the way to kill it. She saw what it would do to her.

She gripped Larry's arm as much as she could with stone hands, as he held her up on the small stairs.

'To kill an Angel,' she said, holding onto him. 'I would have to murder it like any other creature whilst it's in it's natural, non-stone state.' She paused, as though she was going to say more, but didn't say. She wasn't sure whether it was smart to tell Larry what it would do to her when she murdered the Angel.

'So they have to be natural?' the Doctor asked. 'So we can't be anywhere near them, then?'

'I guess not,' Sally said. She could feel the Angel, slightly, like a buzzing in front of her. She could tell it was there, searching in her mind. The telepathic network they seemed to have had obviously been introduced to her, but she didn't know how far that gave them control over her thoughts.

Sally attempted to reach the Angel before her, to talk to it, but it remained silent. It had told her what it would do to her, even in death, and had vowed to say nothing else.

It made her stomach turn.

'Sal, you okay?' Larry asked. She'd been silent for a while now.

'Oh, err, yeah. Fine.'

'What's wrong baby?'

'I can't think straight,' she said. 'All of this... am I allowed to break down, or is that stupid?'

'I'd be breaking down if I were you,' the Doctor admitted.

Sally then proceeded to cry for several minutes, before demanding that she be left alone in a room with the Angel in front of her.

The Doctor and Larry waited on the weeping girl, with the Angel that had helped them, and Iggy in the basement, whilst she did what she needed to upstairs.

When they next saw her, almost her entire face was stone, as well as her whole left arm. She was barely able to move, though her legs were still flesh, allowing her to actially walk.

She'd never felt so close to death.


	8. Chapter 8: Wings and All

Sally's mouth was just about able to move, but her tongue and some of her throat was stone. It was killing her. She could barely breath, stuck between two existences.

'Two... more...' she managed to croak out. Her immobile hands were held by Larry, who refused to let her go anywhere alone.

'It has to happen,' the Doctor said. 'She wants to fight them, and this is the only way we-'

'This is it?' Larry yelled, letting go of Sally, standing up on the grit of the basement floor, eye level with the Doctor. 'This is what you have?! This is your grand plan to save her? Us?! Our child?'

'I can't save her,' the Doctor said, knowing how stupid and pathetic he sounded. 'But she can. And she's close.'

'Yeah, she bloody is!' Larry almost laughed, mocking the Doctor's words. 'She's close to being nothing more than another Angel, and I can't cope with that. I'm not some alien time-travelling God who can just run away and say 'oh, I can't do this, save yourselves', Doctor. I'm Larry Nightingale, and I am scared for the woman I love and the child she's protecting! Why can't you say anything more than just 'she's close'?'

'Because I genuinely can't do anything, Larry,' the Doctor shouted back. 'Sally is like this because of me, I introduced this world to her, I told her to give me those transcripts. If that hadn't happened, none of this would have. It's a paradox that I started.'

'That's laughable,' Larry said. He drew up close to the Doctor, inches between their noses. 'Sally is everything to me, and all you can say is that it's your fault she's dying and you can't help her.'

'Want...' Sally mumbled, her aching lips struggling under the weight. 'To fight.'

'You want to fight them?' Larry asked her, kneeling down to hold her. 'I know I agreed to this, but that was before I saw what fighting them did to you... it's accelerating it.'

'Will... end...'

'How can you be sure?'

Sally said nothing, but simply pointed at the Angel that had helped them. She had told her.

'You knew?' Larry asked her. 'You knew what it would do to you?'

Sally nodded stiffly.

'Where's the last one?' the Doctor asked, pushing her. He knew it was wrong, but he had to see her fight these. She could win, or she would die. His lesson was being taught, indeed. Seripho had shown him the consequences of his own actions - his friend was half-stone, her child at risk and her love broken and angry. He had caused this.

He knew that Sally didn't want him thinking that, but it was true.

Sally stood up, with Larry's help, and mumbled softly 'Waiting... Outside.'

'The next one's outside? Can you feel it?' Larry asked.

Sally nodded, and started to move with Larry in tow.

The Doctor left Iggy and the Angel in the basement, following Sally and Larry out into the dimming light.

The next Angel stood by the TARDIS, as though taunting them.

Sally was taken by Larry to the room they had used last time - no light, lockable door, perfect. In there, the Angels wouldn't be able to see each other, nor her, and she was able to fight them.

The Doctor and Larry then moved the Angel, literally picking it up and carrying it, to the room, locked the door and moved away, waiting.

From inside they could hear her voice - Sally. In there she was free to move as much as she wanted. To scream and yell as much as she liked.

They could hear the Angel, too. It's noises were far from human. Screeches not unlike the ones Sally had made when the Angels had sped up her conversion. They were chilling and cold, hard sounds. Like kind that haunt you after a ripping nightmare.

Eventually Sally emerged from the room, victorious. She was hurt, it was obvious, as she limped and fell to the floor as her left leg turned to stone under her.

Larry jumped out to help her up, but it was almost impossible to keep her upright. Desperate, he and the Doctor moved her into the dark room, using the light the Doctor kept in his jacket as a light source.

They could see the dust and gravel of the angel that had been destroyed in here - they didn't want to know what Sally had had to do to make this kind of mess.

The Doctor took out his psychic paper, knowing that sally would be trying to reach them. sure enough, the words _I'm winning_ quickly showed up on the page, and Larry smiled. He kissed the forehead of her stone, statuesque figure, and told her he loved her.

_I love you too_ appeared on the paper.

'That's the two sisters,' the Doctor said, talking to both of them. 'Now, the big daddy, the one who's converting you. Can you feel him, Sally?'

_Yes. He's here,_ she said.

'Here?' Larry asked, reading it. 'Where 'here'?'

_Here._

The word appeared on the paper, but it was a different - the paper's subtle but effective way of telling the Doctor that this was a new speaker.

The Doctor and Larry both turned on the spot to see the screaming, attack face of an Angel, it's wings flared and teeth prepared to rip them apart, if needs be.

Larry shrieked and jumped backwards, but the Doctor remained solid, holding the light up to it's face. The Doctor smiled.

'Sally, you listening?' he called. 'We're going to leave you two to it. I have faith in you,' he said, feeling with everything that he should stay, be part of the fight. But he couldn't. Not this time. It wasn't his person to save.

'Keep watching him,' Larry told him. 'Just for a second. Don't turn around, okay?'

'Okay... wait, what are you doing?; the Doctor asked.

Behind him, Larry looked to Sally, who he was still keeping upright. 'I really do love you, you know that?' He smiled, brushing her stone face. 'I'm going to trust you now, okay?' He waiting, like he was expecting a response. 'Okay. Here goes.'

Larry Nightingale closed his eyes.

Instantly, her soft, fleshing lip pressed against his, and he took her body in his arms. He could feel the tears on her cheeks, but whether they were from him or her was a question he couldn't answer.

'I love you too,' she said between kisses, smiling. 'I'll do this,' she said. 'I can do this, I promise.'

'I believe you,' Larry said, trying not to just kiss her forever. 'I just... I hate seeing you...'

'So Angel-like?' she asked. 'It's not exactly fun, actually... but it'll be sorted. Once I've done this, take me to the Angel in the basement, that'll sort me.'

Larry nodded and smiled, kissing her again.

'Are you two kissing again?!' the Doctor called back. 'I'm not sure you've noticed, but I've got a great-big Angel-snarl in my face here, and I'd appreciate it if you'd wrap it up?'

'I think that's my cue,' Sally said. Larry nodded and opened his eyes, and returning to see that stone face, even with the smile it had - her smile - still broke him a little inside.

The Doctor and Larry left the room, holding their gaze at the Angel for as long as they could.

Sally's smile stayed until the instant Larry's eyes left her. Then it was just her and the Angel.

From outside, they heard the fight. The tearing of flesh, the screams, the screeches, the blows, the breaking wood and snarling beasts.

Sally's return from the room consisted of her opening the door just a crack, until Larry's eyes jumped up to see her, still dressed in her clothes (though they were torn and bloody), completely stone. She was an Angel, wings and all.


	9. Chapter 9: An Unlucky Charm

Sally's wings were folded, behind her back, reserved. Her grey, still face looked frozen in tiredness, but also of pride. She was proud of her self for what she was able to do: save her family.

Her clothes hung off her stone figure, torn and burnt in places. God knows what the Angels were capable of in their true forms.

Larry almost threw himself at her, holding her face in his hands, feeling the wounds that had been immortalised in her granite skin, looking into her happy, pained eyes.

The Doctor held him by the shoulders as he almost broke down. It's hard seeing the person you love in a state like this, even if they did win.

The psychic paper showed no words. Nothing. No thoughts from within.

They did as they had been told - take her down to the Angel in the basement. The one who could heal her for the price of killing it's cannibalistic family. Time to see if the creature would hold up a deal.

It was still in place, with Iggy holding it in perpetual sight. Waiting for them to return.

Larry and the Doctor carried Sally, carefully and slowly, to the basement, where they stood her in front of the Angel. She was able to stand on her own, but Larry insisted on staying for a second.

'I know you can hear me,' he said to the Angel. 'And if you so much as sneeze out of the plan, I'll end you,' he said. 'Wouldn't kill you if I dropped you into the sun, but I bet it would hurt.' He turned to Sally and brushed her face. 'I love you, Sal.'

The Doctor took Iggy and Larry, one in each arm, and lead them out of the room. It was time for Sally to have her memory wiped. To forget the Angels, the danger. The Doctor.

Inside the room, as the Doctor, Larry and Iggy left, Sally became human first, and the Angel remained stone. Maybe this was a side effect of being half-human - dominance in the whole 'two-Angels-staring-at-each-other' thing.

Sally watched the Angel, and kept it in sight as she turned to look at her wings. They were beautiful.

Long, light and sleek. They shimmered off the small amount of light still in here, the flickering bulbs in the ceiling giving them a slight sparkle. She stretched one out, feeling the weight of it. It was light for how big it was, and touched the wall of the basement with the tip without being fully extended. She wondered if she'd be able to fly on these...

She turned her attention back to the Angel, which had turned to look at her in her distraction.

Are you ready? _it asked her._

'I think so,' she said, closing her eyes.

She felt it's hand on her shoulder, tracing up to her cheek. She held her breath as the world spun away from beneath her.

The words _it's done_ appeared on the Doctor's psychic paper, and he lead Larry down to the basement, where they saw the Angel holding Sally - human. No wings, no stone, no grey veins. There was no trace of the Angel ever being there - her fear was gone. Her memories were gone.

The rest was easy. The Doctor took the Angel into the TARDIS, flew it off to the beginning of the universe to life out it's immortal life, hopefully teaching Angels not to be cannibals.

Sally woke up, her love for Larry untarnished, her child was fine and she didn't remember a thing. The Doctor had to say goodbye in her sleep.

'I'm sorry for everything I put you two through,' he said to Larry, who nodded solemnly in return. 'I've got to go. If I stay, she might remember and that'd be awful for everybody...'

He realised then, thinking back to Donna Noble, how much better off people were without him. Without even remembering they've met him. All he does is endanger people.

He'd learnt his lesson.

But why?

He took himself in the TARDIS back to The Garden, back to that spot, not sure what to expect when he left.

He stepped out onto the thick grass, feeling it crush under his feet. Seripho was waiting, a great big smile stuck on that stretched face of his.

'How did you fair?' he asked.

'Sally Sparrow is alive, and safe.'

'Because she forgot everything you did to her?'

'Yes.'

'So what can we conclude from this little venture?'

'That I ruin people.'

'Like an unlucky charm.'

The Doctor looked at him, dead in the eye. 'Where is Clara?'

'Oh she's right here,' he said, moving aside. Clara was standing within a small bubble of energy. There was no bullet wound, no sign of a scar - nothing. 'Haven't hurt her in any way, I promise.'

'How can I believe you?'

'Hey, I did you a favour! I even wiped her memory of being shot. She won't remember the feeling, she'll barely remember what happened. You get to be the hero this time, Doctor,' he laughed. 'Oh, and by the way, I was meaning to tell you that the reason I'm here is on orders. Orders like the ones I was given to tell you this much: we're building bodies. Human bodies. Hence the emotional harvesting and the physical absorption of people here. The trees tell us the most intimate details of human anatomy, and Adam was being used to generate emotions. Didn't do it very well, bless him, but he was always a little useless, wasn't he?'

The Doctor couldn't respond.

Seripho smiled and clicked his fingers, vanishing into nothing. Clara dropped from the bubble she was being held in, landing on the damp grass, waking her from whatever induced-sleep Seripho had put her into.

He rushed over to her, helping her into the TARDIS on unsteady legs, sitting her on the mechanical seat they have in the console room.

'What happened?' she asked, rubbing her temples.

'Lots of things. You were captured, I was sent away,' he deliberately avoided the subject of her getting shot. 'Then I came back to get you. That's about it.'

'What about the people going missing?'

'A man called Seripho, using trees to create physically accurate people. Adam was being used to artificially recreate emotions - they were experiments.'

'That's awful...'

'Anyone who went missing, they're already part of the system.'

'How do we stop it?'

'Contact the I.C.C, tell them their planet isn't safe for visiting alien life. It'll go into lockdown. No one will ever come here again.'

'Okay. Alright.'

'It's the best we can do, Clara.'

'I know,' she said. 'You can't save everyone.'

...

As Sally made her way down from that dusty bedroom, she caught the sight of something on her wrist on the bannister. A tiny tattoo, one she couldn't remember getting.

One, tiny wing.


End file.
